Matching Pegs

Remember this incident?

The other night I made my chef a new fabric hat.  I am quite pleased with the result.  You see our culinary friend must be looking at his best, as he plays an important part in dressing up our kitchen.  Our exciting news – and the reason our house needs to look at its best – is that we have bought a new (and much bigger house)  and need to put our current house on the market as soon as possible.  We have spent all weekend painting the doors and trim that we stripped in previous weeks.  We also moved lots of furniture around, and put some of it out in the garage.

Here is another little thing I made the other night – more “set dressing”.  I just wrapped some of my favourite fabric around a blank canvas.  I had intended it for another spot, but I thought it looked good on the mantle.

Our new house has very 80′s decor – apricot and mission brown, rather than pink and dove grey.

This is the dining room in our new house.  Because the meals area, connected to the kitchen, is so large and pleasant, we are not going to use this as a dining room.  It will be my very own sewing room!  I just have to wait until October, (when we settle) to set it up, and make it a little more sympathetic to our style.

I am going to be de-cluttering and sprucing up our current place for a while and will not be posting (or replying to comments) for the next week or so.  Know anyone that wants to buy a nice house?

A clever friend showed me how to turn my illustrator drawings into repeating patterns, and I have been waiting for a chance to give this a go.

You are looking at my first try (just in black and white so far).

What do you think?

For the last two weekends, Luke and I have been working hard around the house, doing some things we have been waiting to do for years.

One thing I have done is re-paint the heater surround (which would have originally been a fireplace).  Previously it was badly painted with flat wall paint over an older darker colour, which showed through in a few places.  It has always bothered me (You can see it here on the left).

I talked Luke into letting me paint it in a dark colour.  It is actually the same custom colour we had mixed up for our gutters and trim outside – a very dark, midnight blue.  My theory was that it would make the dark ugly heater stand out less, and tie in more with the dark unpainted tiles along the floor in front of it.

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out, even though I know it is not a look everyone would like.  I am happy to report that it has grown on Luke, so he likes it too.

Sadly we are in the middle of a much bigger, and less exciting job.  We are stripping paint off trim and doors all over the house.

The people we bought the house from had just painted all the trim, and we very quickly found out that they had done a very bad job with the preparation.  Everywhere we looked the white was peeling off to show the dark beige underneath.  It has been such a big job to remove all the loose paint, but as we strip it off we can see that the previous owners didn’t even wash the doors, so it is not surprising that the white is coming off.

Once we have finished preparing, we will be repainting it white.

I didn’t want to leave you with such a drab old picture, here, enjoy my happy wanderer – I sure am.

We had some new faces around here on Thursday.  I thought they were worthy of some befores and afters…

Michaela before

After – a kitty cat.

Rory before

After – a Wookie

Amelia before

After – A skull with a bow!  All faces created by request.

And now to reveal an “after” that will not be only temporary….

Amelia’s new glasses!

Turns out that when 2 short sighted people become parents, they might be likely to have a short sighted child.

These lovely glasses are a sort of iridescent rainbow pair – greeny aqua at the front, through to pink and purple on the sides.

They really suit Amelia, don’t you think.

I wondered, back when I started this painting, how long it would take me to complete it – it turns out 6 months.

I am pretty happy with it, it really cheers up the room, (even if the hook it is on turns out to be slightly off centre – I hope that I can fix it in under 6 months).

I did use a slightly unusual tool when I was creating this work of art.  I knew I would have difficulty painting a really thin line with a steady enough hand, but I really wanted to add an outline between the petals.  I ended up using a purple sharpie.  I hope it doesn’t fade quicker than the rest of the painting.

Even though the judges on one of our favourite shows, Home Made, (the kids love it) advise against home made art, I think this one suits our bedroom just fine – perhaps because our bedroom is so average suburban to start with.

Do you have any home made art on your walls?

I have written this post over 5 days, because, in the midst of school holidays, kid-centred programming has commenced in the Matching Pegs household.  Here is a random pretty image to brighten up this post- Happy Wanderer (Hardenbergia violacea) from our front yard.

At the recent “Girls Day Out” I asked Leanne Beasley about how she marks her dark applique pieces.  She described using metallic gels pens, which I thought this was a great tip that I would like to try one of these days.  It got me thinking that I should discuss here what I use for marking my applique pieces.

Given that I use a method of needle turn applique where the marked line alone determines the edge of the finished applique piece, (as opposed to methods that use freezer paper, and sometimes starch or glue, to determine the edge of the finished piece) a clear, high-contrast, thin line, that will not wear off as you handle it is really important.

Because I have had a little practice with needle turn applique, I am quite happy to mark with a permanent line because I know I will turn it all under.  I quite often use permanent pigma pens, because they are clearer to see than some other less permanent markers.

For those who are new to needle turn applique, it can be hard to turn under every little millimeter of marked line.  For beginners,  I would recommend marking with a line that will disappear if possible.  On lighter fabrics I use the ubiquitous blue, wash out marker*.

This is a new pen I have been using to mark dark fabrics – made by “Matilda’s Own”.  This white marker washes out with water OR disappears when you iron, (so you need to think carefully about how you are going to use it,  you don’t want to iron it off by mistake).  As you draw with it, it goes on clear, and it appears as a white line as it dries, which can take some getting used to.  The best thing about this pen is that it does create a very visible line that does not brush off/blur as you handle it, as chalk can do, and of course it all washes/irons out.

When it comes to attaching my applique pieces to the background fabric, I am a great believer of basting.  Firstly I pin my pieces in place with fine, but normal length pins (as I don’t own any applique pins).

Next I thread up a needle in a light colour thread (to make sure there is no chance of the thread marking my piece permanently) and make a knot at one end.  I make diagonal stitches to hold the piece in place, taking care not to sew in the area where the applique allowance will be turned under.  I finish off my basting with a large back stitch and leave a thread tail, so that it is easy to pull out the basting thread once the applique piece is all sewn on.

Here is a look at a larger piece I completed earlier, where you can see a bigger expanse of basting.  Actually it is the loopy piece you see finished above.  As you can see, I cut the inside away as I was sewing.  For those that are intrigued, wondering what the hell this shape is, it is largely abstract – I will reveal it all….eventually.

I hope you have enjoyed a little look at how I mark and baste my work – do you have any special tricks you would like to share?

* If you use these markers, take great care with where you leave your work.  If you leave your work in the sun, it can set the lines so that they will not wash out.